Slow GUI Response On VDP 6.1.3

I recently ran into an issue, where the Backup Job tab was extremely slow in loading the jobs and when I say extremely slow it was taking forever to load the jobs. This was the same with the other tabs as well in the Web Client VDP GUI.

In the axis2.log under /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_log the following was logged:

2017-01-16 12:57:35,105 [1690894503@qtp-1786872722-26] ERROR org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServlet  - Java heap space
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
        at java.util.Arrays.copyOf(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.expandCapacity(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.ensureCapacityInternal(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.append(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.StringBuffer.append(Unknown Source)
        at java.io.StringWriter.write(Unknown Source)
        at com.ctc.wstx.sw.BufferingXmlWriter.flushBuffer(BufferingXmlWriter.java:1103)
        at com.ctc.wstx.sw.BufferingXmlWriter.fastWriteRaw(BufferingXmlWriter.java:1114)
        at com.ctc.wstx.sw.BufferingXmlWriter.writeStartTagEnd(BufferingXmlWriter.java:743)
        at com.ctc.wstx.sw.BaseNsStreamWriter.closeStartElement(BaseNsStreamWriter.java:388)
        at com.ctc.wstx.sw.BaseStreamWriter.writeCharacters(BaseStreamWriter.java:446)
        at org.apache.axiom.util.stax.wrapper.XMLStreamWriterWrapper.writeCharacters(XMLStreamWriterWrapper.java:100)
        at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.MTOMXMLStreamWriter.writeCharacters(MTOMXMLStreamWriter.java:289)
        at org.apache.axis2.databinding.utils.writer.MTOMAwareXMLSerializer.writeCharacters(MTOMAwareXMLSerializer.java:139)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.EventMoref.serialize(EventMoref.java:155)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.EventMoref.serialize(EventMoref.java:78)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.ActivityInfo.serialize(ActivityInfo.java:889)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.ActivityInfo.serialize(ActivityInfo.java:198)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.ArrayOfActivityInfo.serialize(ArrayOfActivityInfo.java:216)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.TaskInfo.serialize(TaskInfo.java:630)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.DynamicValue.serialize(DynamicValue.java:244)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.DynamicValue.serialize(DynamicValue.java:152)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.ArrayOfDynamicValues.serialize(ArrayOfDynamicValues.java:216)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.ArrayOfDynamicValues.serialize(ArrayOfDynamicValues.java:160)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.GetDynamicPropertyResponse.serialize(GetDynamicPropertyResponse.java:165)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.GetDynamicPropertyResponse.serialize(GetDynamicPropertyResponse.java:109)
        at com.avamar.mc.sdk10.GetDynamicPropertyResponse$1.serialize(GetDynamicPropertyResponse.java:97)
        at org.apache.axis2.databinding.ADBDataSource.serialize(ADBDataSource.java:93)
        at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.llom.OMSourcedElementImpl.internalSerialize(OMSourcedElementImpl.java:692)
        at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.util.OMSerializerUtil.serializeChildren(OMSerializerUtil.java:556)
        at org.apache.axiom.om.impl.llom.OMElementImpl.internalSerialize(OMElementImpl.java:874)
        at org.apache.axiom.soap.impl.llom.SOAPEnvelopeImpl.internalSerialize(SOAPEnvelopeImpl.java:230)
2017-01-16 12:58:20,038 [1690894503@qtp-1786872722-26] ERROR org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServlet  - Java heap space
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
2017-01-16 12:59:07,070 [486089829@qtp-1786872722-25] ERROR org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServlet  - Java heap space
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space

Because of this the backup jobs never used to run and the mccli commands took forever to report the outputs.
The solution was to obviously increase the Java heap memory. The steps would be to:
(Backup the files before editing them)

1. Browse to the following location:

# cd /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs

2. Make a backup of the mcserver.xml file before editing it. Open the mcserver.xml file using a vi editor

# vi mcserver.xml

3. Locate the following line. <entry key="maxJavaHeap" value="-Xmx1G" /> and change the value from 1G to 2G

Before Edit:
<entry key="maxJavaHeap" value="-Xmx1G" />
After Edit:
<entry key="maxJavaHeap" value="-Xmx2G" />

4. Save this file

5. Go to the following location

# cd /usr/local/avamar/lib/

6. Make a copy of mcserver.xml file in this location and open it in vi editor and edit the same parameter in this file too:

Before Edit:
<entry key="maxJavaHeap" value="-Xmx1G" merge="newvalue" />
After Edit:
<entry key="maxJavaHeap" value="-Xmx2G" merge="newvalue" />

7. Save the file

8. Switch to admin mode of VDP sudo su - admin and restart MCS using:

# mcserver.sh --restart

Post this, the GUI should show some relief in terms of loading and you should no longer see the java heap error in axis2.log

Hope this helps.